Jonas Toubøl

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Office hours: Thursday 10-11.

 

Areas of research: Political sociology, social movements, civil society, volunteering, social media, class, unionization, mixed methods

 

Editor of Acta Sociologica: Please direct inquiries to the editorial office via actasociologica@samf.ku.dk.

 

Current research

SoMeVolunteer: Social Media Enabled Informal Volunteering in Times of Crisis

Funded by The Velux Foundation

We live in a time of many crises, which all create urgent needs for help. As we saw in the refugee crisis in the summer of 2015 and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state and civil society's established organizations are not always able to handle the acute needs for help when the crisis hits. In many of these crises, informal groups of citizens have therefore mobilized help via social media (SoMe). This was the case during the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, during the coronavirus crisis in 2020, and most recently during the Ukrainian refugee crisis in 2022, where many thousands used Facebook groups to organize and distribute aid. Much suggests that SoMe groups have become an important part of the organizational landscape when crises hit the Danish society. But we know very little about who mobilizes during different crises, how these support groups find out who and how they should help, and what relationships they have with other societal actors. SoMeVolunteer is a research project that aims to answer these questions. Questions which are important to illuminate for our future crisis management and for our understanding of how informal support works in the digital age. SoMeVolunteer will study how deservingness criteria are used in practice to influence the view of who deserves help and who ends up getting help. SoMeVolunteer uses a unique combination of data from social media, surveys, interviews, and news coverage from three of our time's most significant crises, the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015, the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, and the Ukrainian refugee crisis in 2022.

 

Inequality and volunteering in the COVID-19 pandemic

Funded by Spar Nord Fonden

The COVID-19 crisis has severe consequences for young people’s life chances, both in the form of educational activity and in terms of employment. These adverse consequences are likely to be particularly severe for young people from disadvantaged social backgrounds. Unlike their privileged counterparts, they cannot mobilize social capital through their family ties. COVID-19’s negative effects on young people’s educational activity and employment are in part influenced by regulations of the labor market, educational system, and the welfare state. However, recent studies suggest that young people participating in voluntary activities in civil society perform better in the educational system and the labor market. Furthermore, receiving voluntary help has been found to improve mental health and well-being, which may be crucial for participation in education and the labor market. These insights, combined with the extensive mobilization of civil society during COVID-19, motivated this project, which aims to analyze the extent to which and how voluntary civil society activities can mitigate the negative consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for young people’s educational progress and employment? To this end, we use a unique dataset consisting of a four-wave survey panel collected in the period April 2020–April 2021. These data, in combination with comprehensive register data covering the full Danish population, allow us to test and specify possible causal effects of volunteering and receiving voluntary help on educational progress and employment.

 

Other research

Solidarity and volunteering in the coronacrisis

Funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark

This project investigates the massive mobilization of volunteering and informal help in civil society aiming to alleviate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for vulnerable groups in Danish society. The aim is to produce insight into the supply and demand of help and analyze what mechanisms influence the exchange, e.g. social capital distribution or digitization of volunteering projects from the perspective of both helpers/volunteers and recipients of help. We combine four data sources: 1) a short interval three wave panel survey with a population representative sample of 8,000 adults carried out by Statistics Denmark. 2) a short interval three wave panel survey of all of the more than 250 corona help groups that has been organized on Facebook during the crisis so far. 3) Extensive ethnographies of Facebook group cultures and interviews of groups and volunteers/helpers and  users/helped. 4) Big social media data from the Facebook groups analyzed by digital methods.

For more information and recent results, visit https://www.soc.ku.dk/solidaritet-og-frivillighed-i-coronakrisen/

 

Solidarity activism and social media faciliated social movements.

Funded by Carlsberg Foundation

Based on a case-study of the Danish refugee solidarity movement, this project develops new concepts and methods for analyzing how political activity in social media groups influences political mobilization. Mixing data from ‘big’ social media sources, survey, and life-history interviews, the project analyzes how variation in grassroots groups’ interactional patterns influences the political activism embarked upon by the group as well as the individual members who engage in solidarity with refugees.

 

Social class structure and unionization

Funded by LO - Danish Trade Union Federation

With colleagues, I study unionization within a collective action framework. Methodological we draw on Danish register data covering the entire population to model how workplace union density influences the individual worker’s decision about joining the union. In a related project, we have developed the Mobility Network Clustering Algorithm (MONECA) designed to map the social class structure in an inductive manner.

 

Teaching

I teach the mandatory course Methodology and Research Design at the bachelor in Sociology. The students learn to develop complex research designs which they may apply in their BA thesis projects.

At the Master's programme I teach the mandatory Mixed Methods course. It introdudes students to mixed methods methodology and design techniques. The students must apply these skills in a mixed methods pilot study designed by themselves and are thus confronted with the dillemmas, challenges, possibilities and advantages of mixed methods in all phases of the research project.

For my teaching on mixed methods, together with Morten Frederiksen and Hjalmar Bang Carlsen I co-authored the textbook Grundbog i Mixed Methods.

Udvalgte publikationer

1. Udgivet

   The Power of Morality in Movements: Civic Engagement in Climate Justice, Human Rights, and Democracy

   Sevelsted, A. (red.) & Toubøl, Jonas (red.), 2023, Cham: Springer. 334 s. (Nonprofit and Civil Society Studies).

   Publikation: Bog/antologi/afhandling/rapport › Antologi › Forskning › fagfællebedømt

2. Udgivet

   Mobilizing to take responsibility: exploring the relationship between Sense of Community Responsibility (SOC-R), Public Service Motivation (PSM) and public service resilience during Covid-19

   Toubøl, Jonas, Carlsen, Hjalmar Alexander Bang, Nielsen, M. H. & Brincker, Benedikte, 2023, I: Public Management Review . 25, 4, s. 836-857

   Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt

3. Udgivet

   Imposed volunteering: Gender and caring responsibilities during the COVID-19 lockdown

   Andersen, D., Toubøl, Jonas, Kirkegaard, S. & Carlsen, Hjalmar Alexander Bang, 2022, I: The Sociological Review. 70, 1, s. 39-56

   Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt